Here’s a minimal preparation activity that focuses on identifying language chunks in songs. The only thing that is required from you is to choose a song that you want to play in class and select a few key words from the song (about 15 is a good number) that you will be writing on the board or dictating to the students. Here’s an example from a song that works really well with this type of exploitation, Bruno Mars’ Count on Me. I created a poster containing most words from the song (but if you want to spare yourself from the trouble of creating a word poster on the Internet, you may as well write the words on the board or dictate them)

In class, ask students pick any five words from the poster (except the words in the title) and list them on a piece of paper with dotted lines right before and after. For instance:

– …………………….. know ……………………..

– …………………….. friends ……………………..

– …………………….. find ……………………..

– …………………….. never ……………………..

– …………………….. world ……………………..

Now they listen to the song. When they hear any of the words they have chosen, they must write at least the word before or the word after in the gaps. The first student to do so for all the words can claim Bingo. If you feel this is too challenging, then the first student who can manage three of the listed words can be a Bingo winner.

A possible variation to ease things up another notch for the students could be just choosing a portion of the song. For the poster below I focused on the first verse and the refrain of the song (roughly the first minute of the song).

It is quite a challenging -but fun- exercise and the payoff is huge. It pushes the students to go beyond the world level and try to look for strings of words and notice how they bump into each other in connected speech.

As you know, in addition to teaching English I also love learning languages. I’m always looking for ways to practice my French outside class hours, which is the most difficult bit when you are learning a language. Going to class is fine, I love it and I hardly ever miss a class but it simply isn’t enough.

This morning I made a new discovery. It is a website which connects language learners so that they can do language exchanges online. There are many sites of this nature but what makes this one different -and far better- in my view is that, once you create an account or sign up with your Facebook account, you simply wait for the system to set up a videoconference with a speaking partner that matches your profile (in your case, a native speaker of English who is trying to learn Spanish). What is wonderful as well is that you can join in live or recorded clases with native speakers. It has the same feel as going to a conversation class with a native speaker. So you can simply lurk or allow your camera and interact with your teacher. There are tons and tons of classes available to you pitched at various language levels. Hope you luck with it if you decide to give it a try.

Here’s “Alphabet of My Phobias”, a very nice song by talented musician and visual artist Maia Vidal, and the interview that we watched in class (ignore the first few seconds in Dutch). Maia Vidal, as she shares with us in the interview, has had a very interesting upbringing and, as a result, has experienced a lot of diversity in her life. In other words, a good example of globalisation. You can find many other interviews with her on the net in Spanish and French as she is fluent in these languages as well.

Discoverdale depicts a fly-on-the-wall film crew following cult comedy rock band “Dead Cat Bounce” on a desperate quest across Europe to reunite lead singer Jim with his long-lost father, who he believes is Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale.

Crossing Ireland, England, Norway and Denmark, the band follow the Whitesnake Forevermore tour across Europe. They’ve got no money and no idea what they’re doing – just blind faith that one day soon Jim will be sharing a jacuzzi in a five-star hotel with the Dad Of His Dreams… I just can say Hilarious…. even David Coverdale himself thinks it’s a crazy film.. although he swears this guy (Jim) is not his son…. but David acknowledges that he had a very good time watching the film!!!

Are sacred places around the world, such as Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and Islam’s shrine at Mecca, actually the result of contact with ancient space travelers? Watch the documentary from The History Channel

This morning, while taking care of my class preparations, I stumbled upon this documentary from the History Channel. It’s the history of the world in two hours. It actually falls short of two hours; an hour and twenty-seven minutes to be precise. Those of you interested in the subject may enjoy watching it.

We’re celebraiting today the 35th anniversary of “The Snake”…. and casually this year’s world tour is called “The year of The Snake”… anyway boys and girls, today Whitesnake is 35 !!!!

I hardly remember those days, in the late 70s, 1978 to be exact, when David set up Whitesnake after leaving Deep Purple… it wasn’t a bed of roses, but years later, now we can see a powerful, successful, long established and well-known band all around the world.

In this video we can witness the changes during this time…. the members, the chothes, hairstyle, and the wrinkles… don’t forget that David is 61 !!! But after all, they are still rocking, so God bless their cotton socks !

I don’t want to forget to mention Jon Lord, who was a member of the band, and who, unfortunately, passed away last year, so Jon we salute you wherever you are!!!

Once again Whitesnake will be playing in Spain next summer after a four-year drought. If you are one of those who loves heavy rock music, I’m completely sure that you’ll be really happy after hearing the news. But that’s not all…. we’ll be able to see not just Whitesnake, as Def Lepard and Europe will also be playing in this tour, so this is an event you can’t miss.

There will be four concerts in Spain: Barcelona, San Sebastian, Madrid and Santiago de Compostela, and as you can imagine the venues will be bigger than usually, due to the amount of people that are expected to attend.

On the post you can see the promotional Whitesnake’s brand new video, because next month a new DVD, called “Made in Japan”, is going to be launched. Take a look at the video, it’s a live concert, so you can see here something quite similar to what we are going to see this summer on the stage… it sounds exciting !!!

This is what happiness means for some people. What is your definition of happiness? Send it in!!

“Happiness isn’t something ready made. It comes from your own actions”. Dalai Lama.
“Happiness in intelligent people is the most strange thing I know”. Ernest Hemingway.
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears”. John Lennon.
“Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for”. Emmanuel Kant.